How to Read Like a Scholar (Without Drowning)

Leslie H. Nicoll, PhD, MBA, RN, FAAN

Writer’s Camp Director

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You don’t need to read more; you need to read on purpose.

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One of the most common concerns I hear from students, authors, and early-career faculty is some version of: “I can’t keep up with the reading.” The volume of material feels endless, and for many people it starts to feel less like reading and more like trying to stay afloat. Many people genuinely believe that the only responsible approach is to try to read everything carefully, from beginning to end. In practice, that quickly becomes exhausting and unsustainable.

Experienced scholars do not actually read that way. Over time, they develop habits that allow them to learn what they need to learn, find what they need to find, and still have enough energy left to think and write. The key is not reading more. It is reading on purpose.

Reading with Intention

Before you open an article or click on a link, pause for a moment and ask yourself what you actually need from this text. Are you trying to get a general sense of a topic? Are you looking for a specific method, concept, or citation? Are you deciding whether this is something you need to understand in depth, or simply check and move on?

Different purposes call for different kinds of reading. When your goal is simply to see whether a paper is relevant, a careful line-by-line reading is unnecessary. When your goal is to understand or evaluate an argument, you will want to slow down and pay closer attention. Being clear about your purpose makes it much easier to read efficiently and with confidence. A sensible first-pass is often about answering a few basic questions: What is this paper trying to do? Is it relevant to my work? And is it something I need to understand in depth, or simply be aware of?

Abstracts Versus Full-Text

In academic life, abstracts play an outsized role for a simple reason: they are usually the first thing you will see. Used well, an abstract can be very helpful. Sometimes it really is enough to answer first-pass questions and decide that a paper is not relevant, or that it is something you simply want to note for the future.

However, keep in mind that an abstract is a sales pitch, a summary, and a compression exercise all at once. It is useful, but it is also inevitably incomplete. It cannot show you how an argument is built, how evidence is used, or how careful the reasoning really is. When you need to understand what a paper actually does or how convincing it is, the abstract is not enough.

At that point, a more deliberate first-pass is necessary—but it will require the additional step of getting the paper. For many people, this is not trivial. Not everyone has easy access to a well-resourced library, and even with institutional access it can take time and persistence to track down an article. Sometimes the barrier is high enough that stopping at the abstract becomes the default. But when a paper really matters, it is necessary to obtain the full-text. One hint, if you are having trouble: write the author and ask if they have an electronic copy they can share with you, such as a PDF. They usually have it and will be flattered that you asked.  

With the paper in hand, scan the introduction, the section headings, and the conclusion. These parts show what the authors think they are doing, how they have organized the work, and what they believe they have demonstrated—information you need before deciding whether to read the rest closely.

Change Your Reading Speed

Once you have decided that a paper is worth more than a glance, the next skill is learning to change your reading speed.

Many people think of reading speed as a fixed personal trait: “I’m a slow reader” or “I’m a fast reader.” Skilled readers do not read at one speed. They move between fast and slow depending on what they are trying to get from the text.

Trying to read every section of every paper slowly and thoroughly is one of the fastest ways to exhaust yourself without learning much. A more sustainable approach is to match your level of attention to the importance of the material in front of you.

Large parts of most scholarly papers are predictable. Literature reviews, background sections, and methods often follow familiar patterns. Reading these parts carefully, word by word, is rarely the best use of your time. Skimming is usually enough.

Other parts of a paper deserve much more attention. When the authors are making their main argument, introducing a new concept, or drawing conclusions that matter for your work, that is where you should slow down and read carefully, perhaps more than once.

Why Highlighting Often Makes Things Worse

Many people respond to heavy reading loads by reaching for a highlighter—whether physical or on the computer. At first glance, this seems sensible: highlighting feels like a way to mark what matters and keep track of important points. In practice, however, highlighting often slows reading down without improving understanding.

The main problem is that highlighting encourages attention at the wrong level. Instead of following the structure of an argument or the flow of a paper, you are forced to stop at every sentence and decide whether that particular line deserves a mark. This interrupts your reading rhythm and shifts your focus from “What is this paper doing?” to “Is this sentence important?” Those are not the same question, and the first one is usually the more useful one.

Highlighting also has a way of creating the illusion of progress. A page full of color looks like work has been done, but it often leaves you with very little sense of the paper as a whole—what its main claim was, how the argument was organized, or why it might matter for your own work. Many people have had the experience of returning to a heavily highlighted article and realizing that they still have to figure out what it actually says.

There are situations where highlighting makes sense. If you are studying a text closely, preparing to quote or analyze specific passages, or working on a very careful, detailed reading, marking the text can be helpful. But that is a second-pass activity, not a first-pass one.

Some readers, myself included, never highlight at all. I was taught early not to mark or fold pages in books—an admonition framed memorably as something that “makes the book cry”—and that lesson stuck. I do not underline, highlight, or annotate extensively. That practice has carried over to how I read scholarly articles. While I may occasionally jot a brief margin note, I rely primarily on mental tracking and on notes made elsewhere. This approach has shaped how I read: focusing less on capturing passages and more on understanding arguments as a whole. Far from being a limitation, this habit has supported a career built on synthesis, judgment, and editorial decision-making.

The point is not that there is one right way to interact physically with a text. Rather, understanding comes first. For most scholarly reading, it is better to keep moving and focus on structure and argument before you start marking details. If you do want to leave a trace of your thinking, a short note—“main claim,” “key method,” “interesting result,” “possible citation”—is usually far more useful than a page full of yellow.

Knowing When to Stop

One of the hardest skills for scholars to learn is knowing when to stop reading.

Many people feel that stopping before they reach the last page is somehow irresponsible—that if they have not read every word, they have not really done the work. In reality, stopping is often a sign that you have gotten what you need.

The purpose of most scholarly reading is not to absorb a text in its entirety. It is to answer a question, solve a problem, or support a decision. Once you have done that, continuing to read may add very little.

You might reasonably stop reading when you can:

• Explain what the paper is trying to do in a sentence or two;
• Say why it is or is not relevant to your work;
• Identify its main contribution or main limitation; or
• Decide whether you want to cite it, ignore it, or come back to it later.

These stopping rules are especially important when you are surveying a body of literature or exploring a new area. In those situations, your job is not to master every paper you encounter. Your job is to map the terrain.

Some texts do deserve sustained, careful attention. When you are building directly on a paper’s ideas, evaluating a complex argument, or preparing a review, you may well read the entire piece closely, perhaps more than once. But that kind of reading should be a deliberate choice, not the default.

A Note About “Required” Reading

Sooner or later, everyone encounters reading that is labeled required. A syllabus says so. A committee assigns it. A mentor tells you that you “really should” read something. The word itself carries a moral weight.

In practice, even required reading has a purpose. Sometimes the purpose really is deep understanding, and sometimes it is familiarity, exposure, or shared reference. Those are not the same thing, and they do not require the same kind of reading.

If a paper is assigned because it is foundational or central to a course, then yes—this is probably a case for slow, careful reading. But many “required” readings are assigned for other reasons: to show the range of views in a field, to illustrate a method, or to make sure everyone has encountered a particular argument at least once.

In those cases, a thoughtful first-pass and selective deeper reading are not acts of laziness. They are acts of judgment. You are still doing the work—you are just doing it in a way that matches the actual purpose of the assignment.

The real question is not “Is this required?” but rather, “What am I supposed to get out of this?”

Don’t Let Reading Become Only Work

In academic life, it is surprisingly easy for reading to become nothing but labor. Many people slowly stop reading anything that is not assigned, required, or immediately useful. I have known more than a few people who say they will read novels again “after I finish my doctorate,” or “after tenure,” or “after this grant cycle.” Somehow, that moment rarely arrives.

This is not just a loss of leisure. It is a loss of something more important.

Pleasure reading is not a distraction from scholarly life. It is one of the ways we remember how reading works. When you read for pleasure, you follow arguments and stories without forcing yourself. You notice structure without trying. You learn pacing, voice, and clarity by absorption rather than by analysis.

For academics, the risk is not that we stop reading entirely, but that we stop reading anything that is not work. When that happens, something essential is lost.

You do not need to read “important” books all the time. You do not need to justify your choices. You can read mysteries, novels, biographies, histories, or anything else that holds your attention. The only real requirement is that you keep a part of your reading life that is not governed by obligation.

In a quiet way, this also makes you a better scholarly reader and writer. It keeps your sense of what clear writing feels like alive. And it keeps reading from becoming something you endure rather than something you choose.

Conclusion

Reading is a practical, human activity that exists to support thinking, learning, and writing. The goal is not to read everything. It is to stop feeling as though you are constantly trying to stay afloat, and to start moving through the literature deliberately and with confidence.

Skilled readers make choices. They skim, they slow down, they stop, they return, and sometimes they decide that something is simply not worth their limited time. That is not cutting corners. It is exercising judgment.

If you have skimmed this article, remember this one point: you are allowed to read like a professional. You are allowed to protect your attention. And you are allowed to keep part of your reading life for pleasure, curiosity, and delight.

If you can learn to read on purpose, to change speed, to stop without guilt, and to keep space in your life for pleasure reading, you will survive the reading load. I read all the time, but I still think of reading as a hobby. Reading should be something you choose, and something you look forward to. Find a way to make this happen in your life.

Author: Leslie H. Nicoll

Reviewed and Edited by: Jenny Chicca and Miriam Bowers-Abbott

Copyright © 2026 Writer’s Camp and Leslie H. Nicoll. CC-BY-ND 4.0

Citation: Nicoll LH. How to read like a scholar (without drowning). The Writer’s Camp Journal, 2026; 2(1):11. doi:10.5281/zenodo.18483975